Whitehaven residents upset over holiday trash pickup

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MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- With the holidays comes unusual track pickup days. However some people living in Whitehaven say they're stuck with a trash overload because they don't believe they were properly notified.

"8:30 yesterday morning I came to the door looking out. I heard the noise, you know they make a noise, so you know who they are and he's backing up. I holler out the door, 'Hey! Hey!' He kept backing out the door to Shelby Drive and I said, 'no he's not because nobody's garbage was out!'" exclaimed Gwen Batten.

Batten, who lives off AppleStone in Whitehaven, is clearly exasperated. So she called the city with her frustration. They told her the pickup was correct.

"I said today?! Nobody notified us. So it's been awful Miss Shay. No satisfaction at all."

Batten said she understands holiday hours.

"If they wanna pick up the garbage there's always an attached piece of paper telling you when they're going to pick it up and that's fine. We didn't recover anything this time. Nothing at all."

The city said she's correct. They didn't send out paper notices. A spokesperson said they haven't since last November. They stopped because they were getting complaints about the litter from the notices left behind and printing them was costing upwards of $100,000.

Now they post dates of holiday pickup on social media, multiple city websites and they sent news releases to local media.

Calvin Miller saw the notice on the city's Nextdoor page.

"I went ahead and put mine out Monday and they picked up Monday afternoon," he said.

Batten says that process doesn't work for everyone.

"I think it's ridiculous. Everybody does not have a computer at home to look at Facebook. Quite a few older people do not have it. I don't have one in my home," she said.

She can't do anything now but Batten now hopes for more notice next month at Christmas.

"We're gonna have company, more garbage, more food," said Batten.

The city said besides looking online there are also several numbers you can call including 311 and (901) 366-6650 which is the city's Holiday Information line.